Irish unions cancel some strikes due to flooding

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland's trade unions said a public sector strike planned for Tuesday would be cancelled in areas worst hit by this week's flooding.

About 150 troops were deployed on Sunday to deal with flood waters which left large parts of the south and west submerged and thousands of people in Ireland's second city of Cork without drinking water.

Unions opposing the government's plans for pay cuts in the third austerity budget in little over a year next month said the industrial action would be called off in places where emergency or local authority staff were needed to combat the floods.

"While public servants are determined to resist the government's plans for a second public service pay cut this year, they would not let down their communities in the midst of a genuine crisis," Ireland's largest public sector union IMPACT said in a statement.

Hundreds of thousands of teachers, nurses and civil servants are still expected to stop work for 24 hours on Tuesday.

The government called for "all hands on deck" to respond to what it said was unprecedented flooding.

"If you look at the scale of the flooding we are talking about events which have been described as once-in-800-years," Environment Minister John Gormley told public radio RTE."

(Reporting by Andras Gergely; Editing by Dominic Evans)